ST. ANDREWS, SCOTLAND -- Had, say, Tiger Woods or Phil Mickelson or even Lee Westwood delivered the performance that won the British Open Sunday, he would have been hailed as a great and worthy champion, a veteran player with the skill to negotiate the Old Course bluster and the résumé to suggest he was smart enough to understand his position, holding a sizeable lead. Another decorated champion would have taken the claret jug at St. Andrews, which tends to select such players, and the golfing world would have departed the home of its sport, treasuring the tournament just past.

But the author of that winning performance -- marvelous as it was for him, dull as it was for nearly everyone else -- was Louis Oosthuizen, a 27-year-old from a blue-collar family in Mossel Bay, South Africa. His primary international accomplishment, before this week, might have been winning the par-3 contest the day before the start of this year's Masters. Sunday, as the rest of the field treaded water -- birdies among the leaders were as rare as bikini-clad sunbathers on the West Sands beach across the way from the course -- Oosthuizen smiled his way around the Old Course, chuckling frequently.

"It was just fantastic," he said.

Why the heck wouldn't he enjoy it? The flogging he administered was complete. Oosthuizen's winning score of 16-under-par 272 was seven better than Westwood, the runner-up, the largest margin of victory at the British Open since Woods beat the field by eight on this very course in 2000.

"That was an unbelievable performance," said Paul Casey, Oosthuizen's playing partner. "He was very calm, played wonderful golf, and all credit to him."

But what to make of such a victory? It is scarcely Oosthuizen's fault that the rest of the field sleepwalked through the proceedings, and that few realize he could be a factor on the European tour, where he plays regularly. When Woods would win majors in such fashion -- something he hasn't done now for more than two years -- he was said to intimidate the field. Oosthuizen's nickname is "Shrek," the animated ogre. Gap-toothed? Sure. Intimidating? Hardly.

"I don't mind," he said.

Credentials aside, if Oosthuizen's four-shot overnight lead was to evaporate, he would have had to collapse, to some degree, and someone else would have had to surge. Neither happened. Martin Kaymer's birdie at the eighth hole came at 3:36 p.m., more than 90 minutes after Oosthuizen and Casey teed off. It was the first birdie of the day for any of the eight players in the last four groups.

This, then, is what amounted to drama: After opening with seven straight pars, Oosthuizen stumbled, failing to get up-and-down at the eighth, his first bogey in 25 holes. Casey, the Englishman who had similarly never contended in a major, thus found himself within three. Such a margin, in another tournament, could be considered commanding. On Sunday, that moment made it feel like a nail-biter.

"Three shots was nothing," Oosthuizen said.

Yet here is how he handled such adversity: He drove the green at the 352-yard ninth.

"I just had in my head I needed one putt just to get my rhythm going," he said.